MBR: The Captive Public: How Mass Opinion Promotes State Power

I decided I was going to read a book a week for a year, here's a quick review of this week's book.  You can see the ongoing list here.

Basic Info

The Captive Public: How Mass Opinion Promotes State Power by Benjamin Ginsberg




Why I read it

Sitting on my shelf unread; I acquired the book during my time at university but never got around to reading the entire thing - decided it was time to give it a go. Also, didn't have time to get to the book store and my wife was using her e-reader.


How it connects to the Public Sector


This book was written back in 1986 so obviously it is a bit outdated at this point; that said it does offer a comprehensive history of the evolution of polls in North America and if nothing else is very informative in that regard.

I had a chuckle every time Ginsberg talked about the five "new technologies" eroding traditional (political) organizational strength: (1) polling; (2) broadcast media; (3)  phone banks; (4) direct mail; and (5) professional public relations.

I suppose, in retrospect, I'd consider the book more of a history lesson at this point than something that you can work forward from.


What I got out of reading it


My main take away from the book is best set up by the following quotation:

"... the forces of the political right have continued to be the chief devotees and principal beneficiaries of the new campaign methods. Indeed, the ascendency of the capital intensive technological format means that the balance of political power has shifted - perhaps decisively - in favor of the right. First because of their superior access to financial resources groups on the right will undoubtedly continue to be able to make more extensive use of the electronic media, polls, phone backs, and the other elements of the new technology. As the new political technology continues to supplant the older organizational format that generally favored the left, the political advantage will wing more and more toward the right." (p.174)

In the surrounding pages, Ginsberg makes the argument that the political right is better at raising capital and thus exploiting new technologies while the political left is better at organizing people at the grassroots. As a result, Ginsberg argues,  the political right will continue to introduce new means of mobilizing public opinion while the left will continue refine those methods and thereby produce greater efficiency downstream. One could consider the success of the first Obama presidential campaign in the United States as evidence of just that type of refinement.

All in all, I wasn't thrilled with The Captive Public, but if nothing else it was a significant lesson in history; and we all know the old adage about that one.

Cheers.




Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

What my kids can teach you about hierarchy

Watch this ... my daughter is particularly brilliant at the very end.

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect

MBR: Unconscious Civilization

I decided I was going to read a book a week for a year, here's a quick review of this week's book.  You can see the ongoing list here.

Basic Info

The Unconscious Civilization by John Ralston Saul




Why I read it

I picked it up at a community book sale a few years ago -  having already read On Equilibrium - but for some reason I never got around to reading it.

If you aren't familiar with the Massey Lecture Series I suggest having a look, there are a number of great lectures / books available (e.g.  Ronald Wright's A Short History of Progress).


How it connects to the Public Sector


Despite the fact that the book was originally published in 1995, the context within which is was written was very similar to the context within which we currently find ourselves. Among other things, the book addresses issues such as what it means to be a citizen, how bureaucracies use dissociative language to create distance, and the detrimental effects of the rise of the managerial class.

Here's a great excerpt about the tendency for bureaucrats to cast citizens as consumers of government services (rather than citizens):

Yet in imitation of the marketplace, govemment is busily transforming itself to meet business standards. It isn't quite clear what these are when it comes to public service. The flaw in the logic can be seen in very simple things: for example, there is a tendency now to refer to the citizen as a customer of the govemment. The customer of the police. The customer of the fireman or the health officer. But we are not customers. We haven't walked into a shop to think about buying. We are not going to make a purchase and then walk away. We are not even customers with long-term (in business this is rarely very long) service contracts. We are the owners of the services in question. Our relationship is not tied to purchase or to value for money, but to responsibility Not only are we not the customers of public servants, we are in fact their employers. I suppose that if this mania for business terms is uncontrollable, then the most accurate term to describe the citizen would be shareholder. But even that is inexact because (1) we cannot buy and sell our shares (we are stuck with them for life) and (2) we do not own these shares for profit.

This little linguistic slippage within the bureaucracy shows how essentially directionless the corporatist system is. Once the idea of management for management's sake takes over, the organization, whatever it is, begins to skitter about aimlessly, following one expert system after another, obsessed by problem solving without really considering the problem in its own terms. And control. Everything is a matter of control. Yet control, like efficiency, is a secondary or tertiary business, well behind policy and purpose and, for that matter, effectiveness (p 100).

What I got out of reading it


We need to bridge the language divide between government and citizens. One need only walk into a conversation in Ottawa amongst public sector employees to see that bureaucrats have a language all to their own. It's a language that makes videos like these clever, amusing, eye-opening and tragic all at the same time.

Originally published by Nick Charney at cpsrenewal.casubscribe/connect